Sadly, standard

Since moving into my house a year ago, I’ve found another category of humanoid with the same work ethic, honesty and communication skills as recruiters.

Yes, I’m talking about contractors—those who can make repairs and improvements in your living space.

Finding contractors who combine competency in their declared area of expertise with reliability and accuracy is like finding a purple squirrel. You either go to Yelp or you ask your friends for recommendations, but even then it’s problematic.

I learned within the first couple of months here to ignore any of the names given me by my realtor: his plumbing firm came out twice; each time there were “lady, you should get this done” sizeable additions to the final invoice. And of the two handymen he recommended, one never responded at all to my call, and the other kept insisting on texting me even after I told him repeatedly that texting is not how I communicate. His estimate was also quite vague.

I lucked out on the electricians, whom I found via a neighborhood social media platform, Nextdoor.com. Every person I’ve dealt with at Autumn Electric has been professional, competent and good at explaining things to me. Plus—they clean up after their work. They didn’t give the lowest estimate, but I’ve had them out for two rounds of remediation work, and I’ll happily call on them for the improvements, too.

I just wish they did plumbing, too. Because I’m back on the grrr corner. I’ve called a total of six providers, four from Nextdoor and two recommended by friends.

Of the Nextdoor crowd, two flat out refused to come out to look at the job, and gave me estimates over the phone, based on hearing “replace a kitchen and two bathroom faucets”. I don’t do business without a written estimate, and I’m extremely uncomfortable with someone tossing one out without actually seeing what the issues are. So they got scratched straight away.

One came out, looked around and gave me a quote. He’d put himself forward on Nextdoor as being “cheap”, which isn’t necessarily a positive. Moreover, I gotta say that I had to air out the house after he left because the stench of cigarette smoke he exuded like to knocked me out. I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of him being around for hours in somewhat small spaces.

The fourth is someone I’ve used before. I found him agonizingly slow, although thorough, and he had to go out three times to Home Depot because he only completely scoped out what parts would be needed for the job immediately in front of him, not once for everything on his list. Still—thorough and competent. Although I got a little tired of him talking about Hungary, the paradise of the universe. (His parents brought him here when he was a boy; they’ve since returned and he goes “home” once a year, where he gets another injection of nationalism.) Dude—do not wave that flag in front of someone who’s ingested the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, interbellum Europe and nation-state Nazi collaborators.

He came out, did a thorough assessment, and pointed out that if I want to attach the dishwasher drain directly to the garbage disposal, he’ll have to uninstall and reinstall it, because it’s using the wrong size/type line (half-inch copper instead of three-quarter inch flex). Well, no one else had mentioned that, so I thought about it and put out a call to friends for recos.

Enter the last two. One joined the ranks of don’t-need-no-stinkin’-visit-to-quote, but embellished it by being rude, condescending and insulting. He quoted his rates ($110 for the first 75 minutes; $15 for each quarter hour thereafter), and tossed out what he thought it would take to replace a standard faucet. I asked what his definition of standard is, and he gave me a brand name (Moën, if you’re interested), not a description (center-set, single-hole, widespread, for starters). He then dissed the replacements I’ve already bought (“Take it back and get a Moën.”). When I suggested that there might be special circumstances, he reverted to his rates again, only very slowly.

Again—nothing in writing, incomplete assessment of the jobs to be done and the very real possibility that his upfront laziness could end up costing me a lot on the backend. Plus—in a free market, there are many plumbers out there who aren’t jerks to the customers’ faces. So he’s dismissed with prejudice.

The final outfit were quite professional, showing up in an extremely gaudy panel truck. They took a look at the kitchen sink, and were marking it down on their estimator app when I drew their attention to the dishwasher drain line issue. Oh. Well. Yeah—wrong size/type. Have to disconnect and reinstall. Okay, fine. But then they didn’t bother to look at the bathrooms because “they’re all standard.”

I got their app-generated estimate, but honestly: what kind of estimate doesn’t have a total? And there was only one bathroom faucet listed, not the two. Again—it’s an app; you couldn’t click on the function that indicates the number of instances, and the function that totals it all up?

So I called Mr. Hungary, and get this: he’s not sure when he can come do it. I gave him a three-day window next week, but… (He runs a renovation company and does this on the side.) Dude—you bid on the job, WTF?

Well, I just stayed quiet, and eventually he thought he might be able to do it next Thursday. Send thoughts and prayers for me, readers. I want the new faucets.